80: Willie Nelson

The life span of Esquire is now roughly the same as the life span of a man: eighty years, from our birth in 1933 — when Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated to his first term as president — to 2013, when Barack Obama was inaugurated to his second. It is in fact the life span of the modern history of America. That history is inside us. It is in the faces of those around us. To celebrate the eightieth anniversary of Esquire, we have photographed eighty prominent American men (and boys and squirts), one born in each year of the magazine's history. Most, even some of the youngest, have left their mark on the country, and together their faces are a breathing timeline — from those born into the astonishments and traumas of the last century to those born into our own — a living history of the modern American man. Together they are our face. And who better to start our journey than this face right here?

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Go to lifeofman.esquire.com to see all 80 portraits, and to watch video interviews with each of them. Browse galleries of other men born in each of the last eighty years, upload a photo of yourself into the Life of Man galleries, and we'll donate $1 to United Way to raise the next generation of extraordinary Americans.

Most looking forward to: "A honeymoon with a book. I'd like to go to my house and take a book. Take a book over on the couch. And take it over to that chair. And then take it out on the lawn. And then take it over out by the water. Take a book in the kitchen, and then in bed. Just like a honeymoon."

Best day so far: "I remember coming out to California after college, by myself, in a 1986 Toyota Corolla. I was driving to L.A. for the first time, and it was a beautiful day, everything that southern California's supposed to be, and I remember thinking: I finally made it to California."

Best advice he's gotten: "I've been given a lot of advice. Great advice. But recently, it was a friend of mine who was quoting another friend of his who had given him this advice, talking about relationships. But I can't say what the advice is. But it was good."

Proudest accomplishment: "The first time I did stand-up at Carnegie Hall. At that point I had been doing stand-up in New York maybe nine or ten years, and going from, like, crappy open-mic stuff to playing a sold-out show in Carnegie Hall definitely felt like I did something."